“You mean you ain’t got any particular place to go from here?”
The girl tilted her head and stared up the mountain’s steep, pine-covered slope. She swung her head a little and looked at Tom. She smiled bravely still, but he thought her eyes looked sorry for something.
“Is there any particular place to go from here?” she asked him wistfully, keeping the smile on her lips as the world had taught her to do.
“Not unless you went back.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said, firmly, “I’ll climb that mountain and jump off the top before I’ll go back.”
Young Tom felt that she spoke in sober earnest in spite of her smile; which was strange. He had seen men smile in deadly earnest,––his dad had smiled when he reached for his gun to kill Buck Sanderson. But women cried.
“Don’t you know anybody at all, around here?”
“Not a soul––except you, and I don’t know whether your name is Tom or Bill.”
“My name’s Tom––Tom Lorrigan. Say! If you ain’t got any place to go––why––I’ve got a ranch and about twenty-five hundred head of cattle and some horses. If you didn’t mind marrying me, I could take you out there and give yuh a home. I’d be plumb good to you, if you’re willing to take a chance.”